I have. You guys keep talking about stress on the body from playing and training and all this other stuff, which isn't really relevant at all. Injuries are mostly about managing recovery from exercise, not the exertion itself . Freak accidents (D Rose, Shumpert) cannot be prepared for. There is no way to strengthen a ligament enough to take huge loads of shearing force. You can only prepare your body to react in the best way possible. Recovery is the key. In professional sports, these guys spend more time in recovery than they do in training. On back to backs they will pretty much sleep in ice packs. When I went to the AIS, we would get up and eat breakfast, start training by about 9. The first hour or so was spent in warm ups and dynamic stretching. Then we would start doing drills, walk throughs, scrimmage. Then we would cool down, ice/hot bath for about 45 minutes. Eat lunch. 60 minutes warm up and dynamics, train, ice/hot bath. Dinner. Bed.
If Drummond were to get hurt from overuse it would probably come at the end of one of his 14 minute runs. That actually happens. All this other stuff that people have been reciting since the start of the year about him being "overwhelmed" or him "losing his confidence" or "him getting tired and hitting the rookie wall" ignores the fact that it is Frank who puts him on the floor as the only defender playing with guys who were doomed to the scrap heap without him. It is Frank who can't take him out of the game if his group gets on a run. If he were to get hurt that is how it would happen.
all players will have injury at some point, what I am saying is that both have been in league and playing at high level for some time KG 17 years and I would say that the injuries didnt rob him of a career.
I would agree with that. I would just err on the side of caution when it comes to handling the greatest gift this team has seen since The Bucks selected Glen Robinson over Grant Hill.
For me, I agree with both camps. First and foremost I want to see how Drummond - Monroe work together, especially in the lost season. Start him and play him 8-9 minutes in first quarter, bring him back for 4-5 in the 2nd quarter. That puts him in for 24-28 minutes a night with plenty of leeway to increase / decrease as the game sees fit. The best part is he no longer has to suffer those LONG 12-14 minute stretches. Those can make even the most fit athlete winded and prone to injury, especially someone as energetic as Drummond. Then, there is many more options in terms of who plays since there is no necessity to see what Maxiel, CV, etc can do. Wheres Frank must play Drummond when he is in the 2nd unit, by making him a starter it allows him much more roster flexibility since the difference between CV, Maxiel, Jerebko is marginal in comparison to Drummond vs. anybody else.
Drum may want to limit the amount of sleep he gets each night as Piston bigs seem to have a higher than normal rate of sleep related ankle injuries.
let me throw some more numbers and considerations in: Mostly NBA Notes: Andre Drummond, the Rudy Gay trade and down goes Rondo | Roto Arcade - Yahoo! Sports
I want to highlight again how lucky we are that he dropped so far in the draft due to a college season below expectations. Not only did we get him on our team, which we would have paid more than $12M/season for in hindsight, but because he fell so far, we have him at one of the biggest discounts that we've ever enjoyed for a player. The new CBA also made the deal better for us, right? 2013: $2.4M 2013: $2.5M 2014: $2.6M (team option) 2015: $3.3M (team option) 2016: $4.4M (qualifying offer) In comparison, New Orleans got the top pick and pay the following: 2013: $5.1M 2014: $5.4M 2015: $5.6M (team option) 2016: $7.2M (team option) 2017: $9.2M (qualifying offer) I respect Davis, but want to offer that selecting Drummond over him would not cause your fan base to retaliate against you if you were a GM (after they saw him play). The savings that we got from selecting him where he fell instead of where he could have gone is about $12.5M for the guaranteed first 4 years of the deal. That $12.5M buffer is pretty serious money and allows us to have an extra Will Bynum on the team or Jason Maxiell whereas without it we couldn't afford it. More importantly, it gives us room to pay a little more to resign Monroe or to stretch on a FA to lure them to Detroit over a more attractive situation with a team closer to contending. This draft pick is just as lucky as the Darko pick was unlucky. I'm daydreaming thinking of what might have been if Darko would have turned out to be the equivalent of Andre Drummond. Would the team have run the table from 2004 through 2008? On the bright side, we really needed some luck to break out of the doldrums this year and we got a yahtzee.
When you say "max contract," are you referring to extending Jason Maxiel for 4 more years at $12 million per season?
Max has played well all season, he does what he's supposed to do. If Greg Monroe, Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey could do THEIR jobs and fulfill THEIR roles on this team we'd have a much better record.
You expect too much from him. 25+ mpg, solid defense, 7ppg and 6 rpg. That's who he is, that's what he is, he's never tried to convince anyone that he's anything more than that, and his -off rookie scale- paycheck ($5M/yr) reflects that.
